Top makeup artist hopes B.C. election revives hard-hit film business

Special-effects artist Toby Lindala works on a project in his Burnaby studio. He has worked in the both television and motion pictures and remains busy in these tough financial times.

Photographed by:Ward Perrin, Vancouver Sun

Toby Lindala chops heads for a living, but he’s working to keep the gore in his special-effects studio and off the company payroll.

Revenue at Burnaby-based Lindala Schminken has dropped 30 per cent in the past two years, and to keep his staff employed Lindala has veered as far from movies as making pharmaceutical models.

If business doesn’t pick up soon, Lindala’s next challenge will be deciding whether to move his 21-year-old business to Ontario, he says. He’s already started scouting Toronto for crew — just in case.

The veteran Vancouver makeup and special-effects artist makes no bones about how he’ll vote in the May 14 provincial election.

“NDP,” Lindala said. “Mostly because they are offering to help us out with the tax credit.”

The Liberal government is reluctant to offer more film industry tax breaks given its goal to balance the provincial budget, but NDP leader Adrian Dix has promised he’d increase the film-labour credits as much as seven percentage points to 40 per cent. Lindala believes that would quickly translate into increased demand for severed necks, mangled bodies, dwarfs, aliens, vampires and other foul creatures.

Special-effects makeup is a challenging business where half the job hinges on accurately second-guessing details of non-existent creatures in a client’s imaginings.

Lindala has learned to hedge his quotes saying, “This could take three tries and here’s how much the first try will be.” It’s not easy placing a value on the scare quotient of a zombie.

Lindala also doubles or triples timelines to allow for testing and contingencies. Giving an actor Michael Jackson’s slim nose for Scary Movie took three tries. After all, he couldn’t delete a chunk of the actor’s real nose. “You have to imply depressions,” he said.

The four-time Emmy Award nominee charges about $8,000 to $12,000 to duplicate an actor’s head. If the head needs motion, the bill goes up another $30,000 to $50,000 for mechanics.

Film and television production is a key economic driver in Burnaby. It injected at least $408 million in direct and spinoff spending into the city’s economy in 2012, according to a City of Burnaby report by city planning and building director Lou Pelletier.

“For Burnaby, reversing the declining fortunes of the B.C. film and television industry is an urgent issue,” the April report said, and recommended that the mayor inform political parties of this concern.

In 2012, 131 productions were made in Burnaby with an estimated production value of $153 million. At least 2,425 Burnaby residents were directly employed in the industry and had combined earnings over $32.9 million.

Burnaby has 62 per cent of purpose-built studio space in the Lower Mainland, which is home to about 88 per cent of all studio space in the province. At least 72 other Burnaby businesses directly support the industry, not counting many others such as car rentals, hotels, lumber suppliers and florists.

A typical month-long television series pilot spends almost $1 million in the city. The city received $2.3 million from permits, property taxes and rental fees alone in 2012. Production companies have built tennis courts as compensation for public inconvenience in return for closing a public park to film.

Most of Lindala’s work comes from foreign productions, with 70 per cent being TV series and the remainder film. TV means consistent work at a rapid pace for, say, 10 months at a time, while film work means several months to design and plan. But TV work no longer means getting away with less detail. HD TV means viewers see every pore, Lindala said.

While horror films such as Final Destination 5 are Lindala’s natural habitat, he won’t hesitate to check in with producers of a love story to see if “someone might have really buck teeth or dentures.”

Lindala employs a core of seven makeup artists, illustrators, mechanical engineers, sculptors and painters, which can balloon to 30.

The business depends on creative ideas rather than capital investment; nevertheless, it takes $10,000 a month just to keep the 4,000-square-foot shop open. In a month, Lindala can run up a $2,000 bill for silicone alone. Growth comes from networking, building a clientele among producers and production managers.

He estimates 50 to 60 people work in special effects in Vancouver. His main competitors are W.C.T. Productions and MASTERSFX.

Lindala got started in the business at age 22, when he worked on the X-Files pilot from his basement. The show took off and the next season he brought in friends who also had basement workshops. By the show’s third season, he had studio space, and by the fifth season, he had 30 people working on multiple productions. Sometimes, he farms out work. “There’s a guy locally that does beautiful eyeballs,” he said.

Lindala knows he’s one of the fortunate ones. He’s got two TV series, Supernatural and Once Upon a Time, coming back next year. He’s doing a little work on Godzilla right now and taking time to renovate his house, reorganize the studio and test new materials.

If business in B.C. doesn’t improve, though, he may return to his basement, or move back east. “I feel like I can size down and take care of myself, but the guys I work with I worry for,” he said.